Viewed through proving: Phosphoric Acid and headaches

What headache is your patient dealing with? What makes it better, and what makes it worse? Does it extend, and if so – where to? Here’s Phosphoric Acid’s headache from Hahnemann’s proving in Chronic Diseases. Bold italics are mine.

10 Tips for working with homoeopathy provings

Some things are certain…

Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Some of you are very interested in articles on provings, and some of you avoid them like the plague. It would be easy enough to blame it all on students who don’t want to read lengthy shopping lists of gory symptoms – but many, if not most practitioners don’t read provings either.

“If it is not done with exactness, let no one boast to have imitated me, nor expect a good result”

It is difficult to shift one’s mindset from an allopathic to a homoeopathic mode of interpreting and treating illness. However, once that shift is made, the new way of seeing things comes sharply into view, almost like the moment you are able to see an apparently three-dimensional image jump out of a two-dimensional page. Once you see it, you cannot “unsee” it.

Oddly enough, it seems to be even harder to make the shift from a Kentian, constitutional view of homoeopathy, to return to the original basics as practised by Hahnemann and Boenninghausen. Perhaps because so much is similar – even if the mistaken Kentian premise has catapulted the entire therapeutic method along a completely different trajectory than originally intended. The same terminology is used, often the Organon is quoted (usually minus Aphorism 6), the same polychrests show up, and despite the plethora of new and fantastically proven remedies (fantastic as in fantasy…), often many of the same older remedies are used.

Which brings me to a footnote that appears towards the end of the theoretical part of Chronic Diseases. I have always seen this quote as very clearly expressing the importance of experience over intelligence, the importance of recognizing and learning to use what works even if we don’t understand it. However, I find within this particular context, the following sentence stands out: “If it is not done with exactness, let no one boast to have imitated me, nor expect a good result.”

Viewed through Proving: Digitalis, not just heart disease…

not just a pretty/dangerous flower

13 suicidal men?
Becher ; Dr. Franz ; Dr. Gross ; Hornburg ; Jahr. ; Dr. Langhammer ; J. Lehmann ; Meyer ; Piepers ; Dr. Rueckert ; Medical Counselor – Dr. Stapf ; Teuthorn ; Dr. Trinks.

Viewed through Proving: Alumina’s Sore Throat

I write this sitting in a café, looking out at a glorious sunny day.  Hard to believe that it’s November 26th… But for all of us, the sore throats of the change in season are upon us.  In preparation for the rainy days ahead, I present to you:

Alumina and the Sore Throat – viewed through proving.

Viewed through Proving: Platina – overview

In the proving of Platina, the section on Lower Extremities stands out, with approximately 64 symptoms, followed closely by emotional symptoms, clocking in at 41 symptoms.  Upper and lower extremities taken together constitute over 100 symptoms, roughly 20% of the entire proving.  Stomach and abdominal symptoms, sleep issues and headaches also play a prominent part.

Viewed through Provers! Platina and Dr. Gustav Wilhelm Gross

Any way you cut it, the proving of Platina is problematic.   Hughes’ comment at the beginning of the proving brings its reliability into question:  “To the above-named fellow-observer  (Gross) most of the symptoms of Platina are credited. They are taken from a proving instituted by him, chiefly on “a damsel both bodily and mentally healthy and blooming, though somewhat excitable,” who took does of the 1st trituration equivalent in all to between two and three grains of the mental. The results of this proving were originally published in Vol. I of the Archiv.”

Viewed through Proving: Calcarea Carbonica, holistically speaking…

Someone spoke to me recently about a friend who seemed to have had many extreme medical interventions.  “he’s had to go through so many operations,” my friend related, “but he is better after every operation.”
“Until the next one…” I prompted
“Well,” my friend explained, “the next operation is always for something completely unrelated…”

Is there such a thing as a body part or system that is unrelated to the rest of the organism?  One of the most interesting things I find in provings is when we see demonstrations that this is clearly not so.  Often an aggravation or amelioration can be seen to affect the whole organism, not just the part or system one would expect to be affected.  Sometimes we see this in provings, sometimes we see it clinically, and the concept formed part of the basis for Boenninghausen’s therapeutic pocketbook, where he generalized modalities.

Viewed through proving: Calc-Carb (and a good cup of coffee)

Yes, the title of this post has no relevance whatsoever to the content.  But it’s Sunday morning.  As if that explains anything…

What better way to start the week than to read some of Hahnemann’s prescribing notes regarding Calc Carb?  Well, probably a really good cup of coffee at your favourite “work-café”… true confessions of a coffee-drinking homoeopath…

Viewed through Proving: Lycopodium Dreamin’

Some things we expect – if we have any familiarity with use of a remedy.  As I believe most readers of these humble offerings do.  We expect Lycopodium to loom large on anything to do with digestion.  We look for it in our case taking when we suspect the remedy.  We begin to ask our patients gas-related questions, as they, unused to being asked questions about when, where, and how they pass wind, either squirm uncomfortably with the questioning or, more frequently, respond with great relief at being able to talk in great detail about the symptoms  that cause them  great discomfort and embarrassment .  Thus far flatus.